http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles /0703nj1.htm

In a National Journal exclusive, Murray Waas reveals that President Bush ordered Cheney to leak the Plame-Wilson connection to the media ("Get it out" or "Let's get this out" -- were his exact words sources recount).

This story has multiple sources and has not been denied by the special prosecutor's or the president's office. Apparently, in his statement to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, Bush admitted all of this on June 24, 2004.

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Another day, another leak. It seems our society sprouts leaks faster than a hybrid Dutch Boy/bionic octopus could plug them. They come from all sides and each is controversial in its own way. Valerie Plame gets outed. Sherron Watkins tattles on Enron. CIA officers freelance leaks to dampen poor decisions. White House rats on CIA folks for revenge and so on.

This spurting swirl of leaks is full of classic moral questions. When's a leak justified? Does it matter if the leak breaks a law? What do we do when we find a leaker? Does ultimately being correct justify a lenient punishment? I'm here to tell you that even though I'm omnipotent, I' m not sure what the answer is. However, I do know that anyone who sees this as a black and white, merely academic exercise is driving around with the lights off and the blinders on.

The recent CIA leak is a case in point.

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That's not the headline the editors at the Associated Press stuck on Jennifer Loven's article that's hot on the wires now, though maybe it should of. Loven ledes,

President Bush declassified sensitive intelligence in 2003 and authorized its public disclosure to rebut Iraq war critics, but he did not specifically direct that Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, be the one to disseminate the information, an attorney knowledgeable about the case said Saturday.

Bush merely instructed Cheney to "get it out" and left the details to him, said the lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case for the White House. The vice president chose Libby and communicated the president's wishes to his then-top aide, the lawyer said. [emphasis added]

Certainly President Bush has plausible deniability in this case, as he might not have known for certain how the information in question would be leaked or who would be doing the actual leaking; in a court of law, it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to prove that he directly authorized Libby to leak. That said, politics is not fought in the court of law (at least it usually isn't) but rather in the court of public opinion, and the clear implication from this AP article is that the President, in one way or another, authorized a leak of once classified information.

It's important to note that it may be legal for the President to declassify documents -- or portions of documents -- without going through normal channels and then having one of his aides pass it on to certain reporters. But again, what flies in the court of law does not always fly in the court of public opinion, and the admission that the President cherry-picked intelligence -- which was later proved to be wholly untrue -- in order to make his case to go to war can only further alienate voters on the fence over whether America should have invaded Iraq and whether America should continue to occupy the Middle Eastern country.

Make no mistake, today's news is not good for the President. No, it's a sign that he has been backed into a corner, his only temporary salvation coming from the admission that his detractors were in fact correct in their assertion that he selectively used intelligence to hype an unnecessary war.

Update [2006-4-8 21:31:7 by Jonathan Singer]: To make matters worse for the administration, The New York Times' team of David Sanger and David Barstow report that the information the President authorized to be leaked "was already being discredited by several senior officials in the administration."

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According to court documents, Libby has now testified that Dick Cheney told him that George Bush authorized the leaking of Valerie Plame identity. Why isn't this a bigger story?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12187153/

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